Engineering is the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of humans. The process by which these goals are achieved is engineering design. Engineering design commences upon the recognition of the need to satisfy some human want or desire, which might range from the detection and destruction of incoming aircraft to the design of some type of fastener, i.e., a special type of screw.
The first obligation of the engineer is to develop more detailed, quantitative information which defines the human want or task to be accomplished in order to formulate the task as a specification. At this point, the scope of the problem is defined and the need for pertinent information is established. In many engineering situations, particularly those where there is a great body of experience residing in a company that has previously designed similar products, models or systems, a large amount of this experience or expertise is unable to be found or is lost. Consequently, many existing components are needlessly redesigned or modified, even when no change is required.
The forgoing problem is exacerbated when inexperienced or new engineers are assigned to design the product, model or system. This often causes additional time and expense to design the product. Oftentimes, the product does not function as well as was expected. Furthermore, some apparently inconsequential design changes to components of systems will greatly affect other components of the system. Engineering design changes may also affect: the cost and difficulty of manufacturing the product; the ability to sell the product; the ability to service the project and the reliability of the product.